Rev. Nancy Mikoski’s Sabbatical

This morning we had the privilege of worshipping at the church known as St. Paul’s Beyond the Walls. As you arrive you go through security with bags being scanned. I guess that is normal now. The entrance is a beautiful garden with a large statue of Paul at the center. The inscription says “Preacher of truth. Teacher of nations .” That seems very fitting. The large entrance door to the cathedral is very striking. It is a large cross. The cathedral is beautiful. We […]

Today our adventures centered around the Vatican. We began the morning, though, with breakfast that looked a lot like lunch: panini sandwiches and salad. We then headed out for a park that we expected would give us a fabulous view. The view was great but the walk was a bit crazy and included walking through an automobile tunnel. In the afternoon we went to the Vatican Museum. Wow! It makes the Met in New York look tiny. In fact, there was more art than we could look at. There was a […]

Did you know it is hot and crowded in Rome in July? Sure is. It’s clear that we were spoiled in Turkey and Greece where tourism is way down. There is no sign of that here! After a nice breakfast in our hotel, we headed out to begin site seeing with the Colosseum. We saw tour busses and lots of people and lines. We finally broke down and hired a guide. Guides get to have their people bypass many of the lines so we basically bought our way out of a two our wait in the hot sun! The tour was […]

It’s been an interesting day. No touring on the schedule but lots of travel. It was breakfast in Thessaloniki, lunch in Istanbul, and dinner in Rome. It’s amazing what modern travel can do for us! On the drive from the airport to the hotel we came to a stop light. A man stepped out in front of us and then started juggling flaming torches. Welcome to Rome! Tonight we will stay in a hotel in the historic district and then tomorrow we will move to an apartment located near the Vatican […]

Our new private guide felt badly that we had missed some beautiful churches in Thessaloniki so she took us to see some before heading out to Philippi. I’m very glad she did. The Rotunda dates back to the fifth century. It was an early church and then was turned into a mosque during the Ottoman period and then converted back in the last century. Many of the ancient mosaics remained intact, thanks be to God. My favorite morning stop was to a small neighborhood church that had been a […]